Garcia (left hand) likely to be down for at least a few days

WASHINGTON -- Maikel Garcia's status is still unclear a day after he exited Tuesday’s game against the Nationals with left hand soreness. The Royals’ third baseman wasn’t in the lineup for the series finale against the Nationals on Wednesday, and manager Matt Quatraro said pregame that they’ll likely try to stay away from Garcia for the next couple of days to see if the symptoms resolve.

Garcia said Wednesday that he’s been dealing with this hand soreness for about a month, dating back to the Royals’ series in St. Louis from May 15-17. It happened on a swing in the second game, and since then, the soreness in the muscles on the top of his hand are aggravated when Garcia fouls a ball off or doesn’t make direct contact. Imaging taken shows that the small hand muscles are affected, but no fractured bones. It’s been manageable because it doesn’t hurt when Garcia does make good contact, nor when he’s getting his work in the batting cages, nor when he’s on defense.

But it does seem to be affecting Garcia’s offensive game. While he’s hitting .266 and getting on base at a .326 clip, he hasn’t homered since April 30. He’s not a traditional power hitter, but his numbers are down overall this year, with his slugging percentage dropping from .449 in 2025 to .378 this season and his ISO down to .112 after a career-high .163 in '25. He mentioned that balls thrown away from him hurt the most when he swings and makes contact, and that teams might be exploiting that.

“My last homer was before St. Louis,” Garcia said. “After that, I’m not making damage in the box and hitting. It’s not an excuse, but I’m not being myself. I’m trying to help my team because we’ve been fighting, like all season, and I want to be part of winning and bring something to the team. Playing like that is hard to do. This game is hard to do [when you] play 100%. So you can imagine playing at 70% is harder.”

This also isn’t the only injury Garcia has been managing. He suffered a low-grade right hamstring strain on May 30 against the Rangers and avoided the injured list, but he sat out of the lineup for six games. Garcia took limited swings during that time, and the hand issue persisted. At this point, Garcia said his hand hurts more than his hamstring.

Time on the injured list isn’t out of the question, and it’s something Garcia and the Royals will weigh Wednesday and into their homestand this weekend against the Cardinals. The issue with placing Garcia on the IL is that there’s not a definitive timeline for recovery, along with the fact that the pain doesn’t occur at all times, both Quatraro and Garcia said.

“Honestly, it’s weird,” Garcia said. “They don’t have a definite time to get better because it’s a muscle there. I can take two weeks, and then get back to the game and my first swing can hurt. I’m going to think, ‘Oh, I lost two weeks and there is still pain.’ We don’t know.”

Quatraro added: “It’s a frustrating thing for him and for us. Because it’s not something that happens unless he’s swinging and fouling the ball off. It’s really a tough case. Obviously, we know he wants to be out there, we want him to be out there, but if he’s not feeling that he can play at his accustomed level, that’s really tough.”

But at some point, the Royals must decide how much Garcia playing hurt is affecting both him and the team, and if extended rest is needed, no matter how long. There’s no question that the Royals need Garcia to win, but they need him playing healthy and like he did during his 2025 All-Star season.

“Anybody, whatever your job is or walk of life, when you deal with pain, it affects you in a lot of ways,” Quatraro said. “It affects your performance, but it also affects your mentality, how you sleep, how you recover in other ways too. So we have to be mindful of him, the person, as well, not just the player.”

The Royals are going through it right now, on and off the field. At 29-45 entering Wednesday’s game, they have the worst record in the American League. Their playoff aspirations have dwindled before the halfway point of the season, and their roster is banged up with 10 players on the injured list. Just in the past week, they’ve seen two everyday hitters sidelined with Vinnie Pasquantino’s right hamate fracture and outfielder Kyle Isbel’s left plantar fasciitis.

They don’t want to see their third baseman sidelined, either, so how Garcia feels the next few days will be heavily monitored.